Origins of the Odyssey (an inside view)

A letter from Jeff Golden, Odyssey Co-Founder, Executive Director, and World Trek Team Member

The Odyssey was first conceived in a very rudimentary form in the desert wilderness of southern Utah in the spring of 1995. A friend, Warren Cornwall, and I began a conversation reflecting on the incredible perspective and knowledge that we had gained in our lives as a result of our travels. As teachers (though Warren has since turned reporter on me) the question necessarily arose about how to bring more of those kinds of experiences into the lives of our students. We began to reflect on ways to use the Internet to free students from their environments, to allow students caught up in and blinded by many of the negative influences and narrowness of their own environments, to share in some of these experiences.

Three years later those reflections have resulted in an extensive program designed to allow students throughout the country and the world to share in the learning and adventure of a team of ten diverse volunteers traveling around the world performing service work. We have an almost complete World Trek team, numerous volunteer teams, consultants and advisors in place providing support. We have been adopted by The San Francisco Foundation Community Initiative Funds as a project of theirs, extending their financial management services, administrative experience, and non-profit status to us. And we have established supportive relationships with innumerable other ventures, primarily non-profit.

However, the organization is still very much in its developmental phase. Following those initial reflections, a series of newsletters went out to people interested in the project and then an actual meeting for prospective World Trek Team members took place in January of 1996 in San Francisco. These brought together the combined creative thinking of more than 25 people, but the commitment The Odyssey requires was more than a collection of friends and colleagues could make. So, for a while longer, the "team" continued to be just Warren and myself.

Months passed, everyone returned to their normally scheduled lives, and the project went into a state not unlike hibernation - there was no doubt that it was alive and would awaken, but there wasn't a lot to prove it. Then came the summer of 1996. Warren and I were able to create the Odyssey Informational Web site (using the book HTML for Dummies), outlining in some detail for the first time the objectives and methodology of the project, and calling for applications to join the team.

Two major efforts followed. A document explaining The Odyssey was created which later evolved into our proposal. The other major effort involved recruiting and selecting applicants to join in the World Trek. In January, 1997 the team grew from two to five as the first round of selections was completed, with two more members joining in later rounds during April and July. Each team member has assumed responsibility for one of the major project areas, which have continually evolved and been re-prioritized. These include administrative development (incorporating and filing for tax-exempt status, obtaining fiscal sponsorship, etc.); continued recruitment and application review; fund raising and sponsorship; arrangement of service work; curriculum development; outreach to schools, teachers, and youth; technology research; travel logistics; web development; partnering with other existing programs; and the establishment of an advisory board.

From there the story gets a little harder to tell because it speeds up tremendously and goes in all sorts of directions. There have been major efforts and significant achievements in all of the major project areas (and not without some setbacks and pains). The road that lies ahead is still extremely long and difficult. The project is quite extraordinary for what it aims to achieve. While this makes the project seem frequently daunting, it is what has also inspired so many people to come together to work to make it a reality.

The reality of developing such an extensive program has far out-stripped those first musings in the desert, but the vision and promise of the project has grown with us. We invite you to join us in The Odyssey, as a teacher, a student, a volunteer, a sponsor, or as one of the World Trek Team volunteers. There's room for everyone to both contribute and benefit on this journey.